What Does USA-Mexico Mean For Crew?

According to team president and general manager Mark McCullers, it means a lot aside from the
fact that Crew Stadium remains the preferred host site for United States-Mexico.

“There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity to leverage the fact that this event is coming to
Columbus because we’re here,” McCullers said. “We have a professional soccer team. (It means we
can) try to obviously drive incremental season tickets with the pre-public sale opportunity to
really further engage the corporate community, which is one of our highest priorities, to get them
to experience this and to get them engaged in the vision for the Crew.”

As McCullers pointed out, the only way right now to guarantee a seat for the game is to purchase
a full season ticket package, which comes with access to a presale. The Crew has been vocal about
reaching its goal of 10,000 season-ticket holders, and this is viewed as a major boost toward that
goal. For weeks now, this game has been dangled as a possibility in sales calls to potential
season-ticket holders.

Now that it has been finalized, McCullers said the phones did not waste much time before ringing
once the news was made public.

“Of course, our sales executives have been chomping at the bit,” he said. “They were at the gate
and ready to run as soon as this became public. They’re excited. The phones started ringing just
about immediately.”

In a statement, national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann said they knew this game had to be in
Columbus as soon as the matchups were announced. McCullers said he sees a few reasons for that.

“I think that it’s a confidence level,” he said. “I think that they look forward to coming here.
I think it feels good for them to come here because they know it’s going to be a partisan crowd. I
think they’re comfortable in Columbus because we roll out the red carpet. There’s a lot of
Midwestern hospitality that has been invested in this game over the years. They know that we’re
going to do things right from a U.S. soccer standpoint, but in terms of the success, I just think
they come with a certain level of confidence and expect to win here.”

Still healingAt yesterday’s training session at Obetz, I noticed that midfielder/forward/occasional
defender Bernardo Anor was taking part in some split-squad drills with what looked to be most of
the first-team offense. With Jairo Arrieta away on national-team duty, it made me wonder if Anor
could be a candidate to fill the void in what would be his first action since tearing his anterior
cruciate ligament last summer.

Not so, head coach Robert Warzycha said.

“He missed almost all of the preseason,” he said. “An ACL injury is not easy to come back from.
He picked up a couple of other things on the way when he started practicing with us and obviously
he’s not fit. More than anything it’s fitness. He’s not ready for 90 minutes. He needs to do more
and progress more. Soon he’s going to be ready.”

After suffering a concussion last weekend, defender Tyson Wahl has passed all his tests this
week and will be fully available for the weekend, Warzycha said.

BracketsIn
this interview from earlier this month, McCullers said his favorite person to follow on Twitter
is John Calipari because he is a University of Kentucky grad.

So who does McCullers have winning his NCAA men’s basketball bracket? The answer might surprise
you.

“Look, I had to jump on the Louisville bandwagon,” he said. “I know a lot of Kentucky people are
going to hate me for that, but that’s where I went.”

Earlier this week, I asked Michigan alumnus Justin Meram how he felt his alma mater would
fare.

“They’re so young,” he said. “They’re so good but they’re so inconsistent. I know they’re going
to win and then they’ve got VCU. I don’t like that matchup. I think they’re going to pull it out
against VCU. Then against Kansas? They’re going to do all right.”

The Cardinals defeated North Carolina A&T 79-48 while Michigan edged South Dakota State
71-56.